Morning journal and courier., 1887-04-08

The New York assembly has passed the bill raising the amount to be recovered by the heirs of person killed in a railroad accident from the present limit of 5000 to $10,000. Most people are worth at least $10, ,000 to those who care for them.
 For accurate information about affairs in this country the London papers are worth reading. The London Daily News tells it's readers that Buffalo Bill' is not wild In dian, as many of them may have supposed, but the "Hon. w. F. Cody" in private life and 8 stmember of the United States parlia- ment.''
 There are some rather mean landlords and landladies in New Haven, but nothing has come out this spring here which excels in meanness the performance of 8 Hartford sslady'' who notified a tenant of hers who is in poor health that she desired him to va cate, as he might die during the summer and leave the tenement on her hands at an unde- sirable season of the year.
 In speech in Boston the other evening John Boyle O'Reilly said that at a low esti mate there were sent from Boston $560, ,000 and from New York $1 900, 900 each year by the Irish to their relatives in Ireland. "Not to make their homes happy, not to make the people comfortable, but to pay to save their lives, to save their little shelters, to keep the roof over their heads, and to keep them from the torch of Glenbeigh."
 One of the most interesting points that the interstate commerce commissioners will have to pass upon is this: Many railroads have made contracts for the carrying of freights covering term of years, which are in contravention of the terms of the new law. If they keep up the rate set by these con tracts under the law they will be liable to legal complications. On the other hand, if they do not live up to these eontracs the people with whom they were made are very likely to bring those cases into the common law courts and try to compel the railroads to either live up to the contracts or else pay damages for breaking them.
 The Japanese are said to be outstripping. such nations as England in the making of swords. For fneness of temper and keen ness of edge the Japanese swords are un- | equalled in the world, and can scarcely be I matched by blades formerly forged in Damascus and Toledo. A common feat for | a soldier is to cut pig in two at a single blow, and bars of lead, and even of iron, have been divided by these weapons without a notch or imperfection being visible on the blade. A sword of superior excellence is preserved as an heirloom in the Satsuma l family, and with this blade leaf floating 1 on stream has been cut in two by merely be- l ing allowed to drift against the edge. l The torpedo invented by the young watch maker Brennan has cost the British govern
 ment something. The purchase has involved
 an expenditure of $750,000, including the
 inventors salary for eight years and reward
 of over $550, ,000. The government has ac- quired absolute control of the invention and
 has taken extraordinary pains to guard the
 secrets for which it has expended so much
 money. The torpedo is said to have speed
 of twenty-five miles an hour, obtained by an
 arrangement of drums, wheels and propel-
 lers, and to be controlled from the moment it starts until it strikes the target. The